Save Me
by shattered rainbow
Summary: Prince James began having strange dreams in his childhood and they have only grown stranger since. Soon he's living only in two extremes: love and fear. He'll have to save someone else in order to save himself. It's very dark in parts, you've been warned.
1. The Angel

The first time I ever saw her I was very young. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember that Father had just given me my first wooden sword and I would swing and jab it at my brothers and sisters and pretend I was a knight. We chased each other all around the castle, one time even making such a racket that Father himself came marching out of a meeting with the foreign minister to tell us off.

That night I had climbed sullenly into bed and pulled the covers over my head in shame. William, my personal servant, just chuckled at me as I sulked and told me the next day would be better. Then he blew out the candle and left.

My dreams were bitter and turbulent that night. There was some sort of a sword fight, and Father was there, and I was trying not to run away but I was too frightened, and that was when I first saw her. It never occurred to me to be afraid, but I was struck with the strange angelic quality of her presence as she paced her way quietly through my dream. She never acknowledged the existence of the figures of my dream, nor did she acknowledge my presence.

I can recall exactly the feeling of awe I felt at being in her presence, and the sort of childlike naivety I felt toward her beauty. I felt as though she must have been some sort of an angel.

The next morning the confrontation over the wooden sword was all but forgotten, and I proudly announced to my brothers and sisters that I had been visited by an angel during the night. Of course they all laughed at my silly notions, and as I became more and more adamant about the existence of my angel they began to scorn me. My sister Lucetta sat me down and calmly explained that I had been dreaming and made the whole thing up in my head, and that I was just too young to know the difference. Although I was upset by her words, as well as the ridicule of my other siblings, they planted doubts in my mind about the existence of my strange visitor. Yet I continued to insist upon the existence of my angel if only to prove them all wrong out of spite.

After some weeks the angel had not reappeared in my dreams, and without any sort of proof or theory to follow, I let the subject drop and the whole conflict was soon forgotten. Very soon the visit began to loose clarity in my mind, the details slipping away as often the finer points of dreams do. And as I grew up and grew older I began to believe that that was all it had been; a dream.


	2. Echoes

I had all but forgotten that dream by the time I had entered my training as a squire. I now knew how to use a sword properly and had spent the past year traveling the countryside with my knight-master, Sir Robert, as well as protecting villages and learning the ways of a knight. We were spending the holidays at Sir Robert's fiefdom. It was a bitterly cold winter. We had to fight our way through gusts of bone-chilling wind before we could finally make it inside of the protective walls of his home.

We were trapped in that building for two weeks while the snow storms raged outside. The snow was piled up too high to be able to go anywhere, and it was too cold to stay long outdoors without moving. It seemed as though the storms would never stop.

It was while I was there that I saw her again. It was an especially cold night, and as I lay huddled under my blankets I lay dreaming that I was caught outside during the storms. I was fighting to make my way back inside, but the wind was so strong that as soon as I came close to the doors it would pull me back farther than before. In the midst of my struggle for shelter, I saw her walking past, in the distance. She was far away, and walking in a different direction than I was. At first my dream-self became confused and wondered how she could survive in the raging storm without any cloak or coat, and then the memories that dated back to when I was hardly more than a babe came rushing back to me. It was that same woman, the woman that I had so childishly called an angel, walking away through the blizzard toward the distant woods. The imaginary reality of my dream was immediately forgotten as I was overcome with curiosity about the reappearance of this woman. I turned away from the shelter I had been fighting so hard to reach minutes ago, and began to follow the woman through my own dreamland. My previous worries were soon forgotten and the snow disappeared, and I could still see the distant figure across the dewy meadows. I began to run after her.

I could not reach her. I began to call after her, but that too proved futile. It was as though she could not see or hear me at all, but was merely passing through.

Her return to my dreams haunted me all throughout the next day. I could not figure out who she could be, or why my mind had put her into my dreams yet again, so far from the time when she had first appeared. After some days of pondering the subject I concluded that she must have been someone I had known as a very small child, and that my travels to Sir Robert's home had somehow triggered this forgotten memory.

After a time the storms had let up and it appeared that spring was on its way. The snow was melting and the small streams and rivulets of snowmelt would trickle their way down over hills and into creeks. They muddied the streets flooded the riverbanks and damaged land and crops. It was time to move on, and to make ourselves useful.

Sir Robert and I spent the next few weeks traveling the countryside, stopping here and there when people were in need of our assistance. I was so busy throughout the days that no thoughts of the woman would cross my mind and I would be too exhausted to remember any dreams I might have had.

Every now and then, though, when things had calmed down, and it was just me and Sir Robert alone in the countryside, everything would get quiet except for the rare bird call and the rustle of the wind. And we would ride there in peaceful silence, and my mind would wander to times when I was younger. And I would remember everything about what I had thought of that woman, and I knew that she was not someone I had known as a child. But those times were rare, and they only lasted for a few moments and it was only because of the little bits of them pieced together that I came to any sort of conclusion.

I was still young then, only fourteen of fifteen, and thoughts of the dream-woman were soon chased from my head for thoughts of real women. It was difficult to concentrate on anything that I had to sit and think about, and before I knew it, I had forgotten her again, except for rare moments when I would remember suddenly, and remember how curious I had been.


	3. Blunt Edged Sword

Time continued to roll past me like some grand river that rolled inexorably forward. I had since been knighted and was full of youthfulness and vivacity, and I wanted nothing more than to fight in duels and impress women. I was no heir you see; I felt absolutely no obligation to learn the ways of a monarch, for that was the duty of my elder brother, Jacob, and as the younger prince I could have all the fun. I don't mean to boast, but wherever I went, I was the one to be around. At jousts, I was the one to cheer for. At dances, I was the one the duchesses and ladies would shiver in excitement and glee for if they could dance with me. If ever you needed to join a hunting party, you could be assured mine would be the one with the most game in the end.

But I had control. I knew the limits and duties of belonging to the royal family.

Firstly, I would never, never embarrass the royal family. I must say I have a very good sense of propriety. If ever I lost a joust, I would pay the debt and congratulate my opponent. If ever someone was injured during a hunt, I would assume responsibility. I knew what fork to use at the dining table, and I knew how to converse with the courtiers. I understood full well the consequences of scandal, and kept myself well away from those situations. And I also knew I must always, and unconditionally, be in complete and utter control of my emotions.

I felt I was particularly talented in all of these areas, and although I was by far the least kingly of my brothers, I was rather princely, if you catch my meaning. I was the perfect second son.

And then it all started again.

At first it happened slowly. It was just after my seventeenth birthday when she came back. The image was the clearest it had ever been, and it frightened me. Now, there's not lot's that will truly scare me, but the clear image of this woman's face sent a shivers all down my body.

Her hair was a rich chocolate brown, but it lay tangled and greasy, falling across her face and her back. Her clothing, which I could tell had once been very fine, was filthy and shredded. Her fingernails were dirty and broken. And her face was so filled with sorrow and pain that it nearly broke my heart, yet it filled me up with this horrid feeling at the same time. I did not want to see such sadness ever again in my life.

This was no dream; it was a nightmare.

She did not look at me, or even seem to notice I or her surroundings even existed. She just walked on as ever; as silent as the grave.

I woke in a sweat, scared out of my wits. As I went through my day I struggled to put her face out of my mind, but the grief-filled eyes and face were continually haunting me. I could not understand. Had I really believed her to be an angel?

I spent all day in the archery range, shooting arrow after arrow until there were no more and I would collect them and start all over. If anyone talked to me I ignored them, and they would soon leave. I wanted to concentrate my entire being on the small black spot on the target, and force all of my fear and frustration out through the arrows and bury them deep into the targets.

By the evening I found that avoiding people had not worked, and perhaps I would do better to socialize. So I spent the entire night at one of the summer soirées that were held on the palace grounds. I danced with as many girls as I could, not even remembering their faces or names, but just whispering sweet nothings in their ears and trying to become distracted by their giggles. When that didn't work I brought one of them into some dark corner and kissed her for all I was worth, hoping that her feminine flesh and vitality might distract me from the haunting image of that other woman. That too, did not work. I abandoned the girl before either of us could be missed and returned to the party in some vain hope of distraction. Although my heart was never in it and I did not enjoy it, it served one good purpose; I was too tired to dream at all that night.


	4. Falling

After a month the woman did not reappear, and I convinced myself that the dream had been nothing but a particularly vivid nightmare. That soon changed, however, when the nightmare returned. It was much the same as always, with me dreaming my dream when suddenly this ghost of a woman would walk past, closer than ever before. The very sight of her caused me to want to turn away, but I found that I was captivated, perhaps in some morbid curiosity, and could not tear my eyes away from her until I woke up.

The dreams became more and more frequent until I found myself fearing the night as I had not feared anything since I was a child. I would jump whenever someone spoke to me without warning. I could not hunt, I could not fight. I could not bear the loud music and the frivolity of the summer parties that were held almost weekly at the palace. I became a haunted man.

My eyes became hollow. I could not eat as much as I once had. The dreams were now nightly. I was in hell.

Finally I could not bear it any longer. I could get no more than a few hours of sleep each night, and these few moments were corrupted and poisoned by the nightmare of that woman. I could tell I was going mad, and I dreaded that nearly as much as I dreaded going to sleep at night. In a final act of desperation, I beseeched my cousin, Thomas, for his guidance.

"I cannot sleep, for this awful nightmare will take me, and I cannot rest, for fear of sleep! I cannot eat, nor do anything useful anymore. Listen to me! I am nothing more than a raving madman! I cannot even think the way I once did! Every time I try I only see this horrid image of that woman!"

Thomas looked at me with a sort of apprehensiveness and pity combined. Thomas had always been my closest friend growing up. I was always the one that decided what we would do and how, and he had followed. I liked to cross swords, he liked to read. I was a knight, and he was a scholar. I was a leader, and he was not.

And all of a sudden the roles seemed almost reversed, for now it was me pleading with him for some sort of relief.

"Cousin, I do not know what to say…"

"I don't care what you say; I just need you to help me. Oh God Almighty, I need somebody to help me, I don't care who."

Thomas looked almost afraid. I had fallen on my knees in front of him, a shell of a man begging to be whole again. I was drowning and I needed a hand to cling to during the storm.

"Please, Thomas. You're the smart one. I need you to at least try to help me. I think I'll die if you don't"

Thomas ran a shaky hand through his hair and sighed, glancing at me almost sideways. "All right, James. You need to tell me more. Tell me about this woman that you see every night."

And so I told him. I sat in the chair in his study, my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands, staring at the carpet and hearing nothing but my own shaking voice and the crackling of the fire. I told him about the first time I saw her, and how I had foolishly decided she was an angel. I told him about how she had returned, and I had been disillusioned, although I had not yet seen what she really looked like. I told him about how she glided into dream after dream, always in different scenery, each time getting closer and closer to me until I could nearly feel the ache of her heart reaching into mine. I told him about what she looked like, the dirty brown hair, and the torn clothing and the dried and cracked skin. I told him about every detail I could remember about her, down to the dreaded sorrowful face. I told him how cold I always felt when I woke up, always as though any ounce of joy left in me had been replaced with grief and sadness.

I told him how sometimes she glided through just sadly, and sometimes she hurried through, like she was scared, and other times she was running as though she were fleeing from something. I told him how she never seemed to notice me, or where she was. I told him all that and more until there was nothing left to tell, and we sat there in relative silence for a minute, and when I looked up I saw a sad sort of expression on my cousin's face, and what he was thinking I have no idea. After that he began to question me, even though I had told him everything I knew. He began to pull big leather bound books off of his shelf and flip through them, hmming and nodding and then scowling and throwing the book aside for another, just to repeat the process. After a time he went back to asking me more questions, but these ones were more thought out and made more sense than the last ones.

"Have you ever spoken to her directly?"

"No, every time I try she doesn't hear me."

"She has never said anything, even if it wasn't to you?"

"No, nothing."

"She has never picked up anything, or interacted at all with the dream?"

"No."

"These dreams were purely yours, from your own head, yet…" he thought for a moment. "She doesn't seem to belong, does she?"

I looked up. "Well, no. She was never a part of the dream. She was just… there."

Thomas thought for a few more minutes. He had the frown on his face like he used to get while solving riddles as children. I knew he had thought of something.

"Have you ever touched her?"

"No! I try and run away from her, but she only gets closer. I try… I can't…" I would have said more, but I found I had lost the energy to speak. I was so exhausted, but I could not sleep. I mustn't, or else she would be there again and only fill me up with indescribable dread… and sorrow at the same time.

Thomas ignored my fatigue, and instead looked me in the eye and asked me one final question. "Why do you fear her so much? I have known you all my life, James, and I have never once seen you run from an unsavory sight. You have killed men in war, and you have buried the innocent. You have seen more horrors than I, and yet you have been impenetrable. You are a knight. Why this dream? Surely you have seen worse things than this woman?"

I had to think about that. Of course, I knew he was right. I had killed men before in battles, some necessary, others nearly pointless, but not without regret. I'd lost nights of sleep over the victims of wars and raids, and visions of children that never had the chance to become adults. But never had anything haunted me like this dream. Never had I been unable to eat or talk or participate in society. So what was it that terrified me so much? It was not they way she looked. That was not enough to cause me to fall this far. It was not the way she did not hear me, or see me. I had had such dreams before, but never so horrible. I knew it was none of these trivial things, but something deeper, and I knew that it was her eyes, her face. It was that look of complete hopelessness and fear and sorrow and that gone, lost feeling I got whenever she came near me. There was something tragic about her, some unhappiness and regret that I had never felt before, and that I could not bear. It was something wrong in the soul, the core, her very being that somehow leaked into mine and poisoned my heart and made me stiff and cold with fear and the ultimate sadness. I feared what she held inside her; I feared what she could do to me.

I tried to tell Thomas my thoughts, but found the words would not come easily to mind and my tongue felt thick and heavy and my voice unwilling to produce sound. I could not think, I was so tired.

Thomas shook his head at me in a fatherly sort of way and came and began to pull me to my feet. They felt like blocks of lead. I fought to keep my eyes open, I refused to return to that nightmare, but I found myself slipping. I could hear Thomas's distant voice telling me something about being awake for three days as he supported me over to the couch along the wall, where I collapsed. Some rational part of my mind marveled at how easily Thomas could support nearly all my weight, while he was so small, and I realized how much weight I had really lost. I fought to sit up again from the couch, for I would refuse to sleep, but I found that my arms were simply too weak to lift me up again, and despite how hard I resisted, I was soon consumed by sleep, and my fears.


	5. Swimming

I awoke very early the next morning with the pale gray pre-dawn light shining in through the window. I was so cold I was shivering, and for a moment I felt so depressed that I wished that God Almighty would strike me down and end this suffering, and that there would be no greater peace than death. But soon the great fear subsided a bit, and I just lay there for a minute staring at the ceiling pondering my fate. I knew I would not die. I was just going to suffer for the rest of my days. I would never attend another joust again, or dance at another party. I would never fall in love, or get married and have children. I knew this would be my life. Cold sweats and the greatest horror imaginable; to be robbed of anything you ever loved or hoped for.

In this horribly sullen mood I turned my head and with a sort of surprise that sent some faint spurt of happiness through my veins, I saw Thomas sitting at the desk, scribbling notes on scraps of parchment and reading and referencing and checking and re-checking his countless tomes and I knew he had stayed up all night trying to help me. And then I felt lifted out of that great depression for a moment to this sense of gratefulness to my dear cousin Thomas, my best friend. And it was then that I knew that when, as youths, we had put a small slit in our palms and mingled bloods to become brothers and sworn we would die for each other, that it had really been true and we really would.

He looked up and noticed that I was awake. Any sense of contentedness that I might have felt was immediately replaced by uneasiness as I saw the look on his face. He looked like he had found something out that he didn't really want to tell me. Knowing that he wouldn't unless I made him, I sat up and groggily, for I felt very fatigued, and slowly swung my legs off the couch and looked at him for a moment before asking, (for even I was trying to forestall the moment.)

"Did you have the dream again?" he asked. I nodded. My eyes were so heavy I could practically feel the dark rings under them. "I thought so," he said. "You were thrashing about all night." He stopped and examined his hands.

"Thomas," I started, "what did you find out." He looked a bit uneasy and began to rifle through the papers and mumble about incomplete theories. "Thomas!" I said, a bit more firmly. "Please. I need to know whatever it is you know. I can't survive like this much longer."

Thomas sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, just like he had the previous night. "Well," he began, "the books weren't much help. I looked up books on psychology and dream analysis and even ghosts… none of them had anything useful." He paused. "That led me on a different sort of search, you see…this might sound crazy-"

"Not half as crazy as I feel now," I muttered quietly.

"Yes," he said with a sort of pained smile, "but listen. This woman doesn't belong in your dreams. From what I can tell, you didn't dream her up, and she shouldn't be anywhere in your head to begin with."

"So what are you saying, Thomas, that somebody else is in my dreams? Am I being haunted?" It wouldn't surprise me, I certainly felt like I was being followed by a ghost.

Thomas shook his head. "No, I don't think you're being haunted by any sort of ghost. First of all, I don't really believe ghosts exist, and secondly, as far as I know, ghosts don't dream." He paused. "I'm not entirely sure who this woman is, but I believe she is real. As strange as it seems, I think she's lost in other people's dreams, and has become stuck in yours."

I laughed. It wasn't my normal, jovial laugh either. It sounded more like the bark of a dying dog. "You think I've got some sleeping maiden stuck in my head?" I cried. I laughed again. "Oh, and I suppose she just wandered in there to make my life a living hell?" I shouted, waving my arms about my head. "I do not have some peaceful sleeper; I have some sort of a monster!" I raved. "No gentle woman could be this awful!" I was screaming, my eyes bulging out. I knew I must look like I had finally lost my mind. Maybe I had. "She is killing me, Thomas!" I whispered, desperate. "I don't want theories, I need a cure!"

Thomas looked genuinely frightened by me for the first time, but instead of leaving me to my madness as any other would have, he stayed and waited until I could calm down. I had fallen down on the carpet and was lying there, utterly hopeless. And once again I got that feeling that I knew I would die, because there was nothing that anyone could do for me, even Thomas, who had always had the answer to everything. So what if I had some sort of silent banshee woman trapped in my head? I didn't care why she was there, I just wanted her gone.

I realized that there were tears falling from my eyes as I lay there, broken, on the floor. It took me a good five minutes to finally collect myself, but by then I was just left with this numb, empty feeling and once again I felt that I would die. It was then that Thomas began to tell me the rest of his theory.

"James, I don't know who- or what- this woman is, or why she is in all of your dreams. I can't tell you why she won't leave, and I can't explain to you why her sorrow is consuming you as well." He sighed, and although I couldn't see him I could picture him running his fingers through his hair, as he did so often when he was stressed. "I can't tell you how to fix this problem and get better, but I can tell you how I think you will find out."

I felt some miniscule flame of hope ignite within me. I stood up from the carpet and resumed my seat on the couch, looking across the room at the tired and ashen face of my cousin.

"I don't think you're going to like what I'm going to tell you, but I see no other way," he said. "James, you're going to have to ask her why she's there."

I sat there puzzled for a moment.

"But she doesn't speak. I've tried talking to her before."

"I know," said Thomas, "this is the part you're not going to like. You need to touch her."

Instantly I recoiled mentally at the thought. I may have even recoiled a bit physically. There was no way I wanted to touch that woman. I wasn't that I was disgusted by her appearance or anything. Totell the truth, I was afraid of that cold feeling I got when I was near her and didn't want to find out what would happen if I touched her.

"Absolutely not." I said.

"Just hear me out, James," pleaded Thomas. I waited. "This woman doesn't belong in your dreams, so it's logical to conclude that she isn't _really_ there." That didn't make any sense at all to me, but before I could question Thomas he continued on. "This woman is probably living in dreams. She cannot leave them. I know I'm in uncharted territory here, but doesn't it make sense that being stuck in her own dreams she had somehow wandered into yours?" To be completely honest it didn't make sense, but I allowed Thomas to continue. After all, he was the intellectual. "Think of it like this," he began. He brought up his hands to gesture with, and I was reminded of when we were younger and he would try and explain physics problems to me. "All of your dreams and thoughts reside in your mind and your mind only. It is virtually impossible for another mind to enter yours and see these dreams. You can think of your mind as a pond, with all your thoughts and dreams as fish. Now, everyone has their own pond, and their own fish, and the fish can't get into any other pond. But consider this," he said, pointing his finger in the air as though he had had some revelation, "It is only when you are asleep that you are dreaming, so it would follow that when you are awake, these dreams, or fish, are at rest, and unmoving. But if someone is trapped within their dreams, the fish never stop moving and churning up the waters and the mud and boundaries between the ponds. And after so much time, these dream-fish become fatigued themselves. The dreams begin to degrade, to lose their quality." I still could not see where Thomas was going with all this, and frankly, his fish/pond theory wasn't exactly helping. So I told him so. But he was in his element and ignored me and continued. At least I needn't think about that woman.

"But you see, as these fish grow wearier, they cannot control where they go, and the dreamer can control less and less of what she dreams. The dreams get out of control, and soon they thrash so much within the mind of the dreamer- that is to say the pond- that they break down the walls between minds and erode the banks of the ponds, until two minds merge." Thomas laced his fingers together as an example. "The problem, is that once these new dreams enter a new mind, they are so worn out they can no longer tell they aren't where they are supposed to be. The fish keep swimming in the wrong pond. But the second mind- that's you, James- notices. It's all wrong to have two minds in one. To have two sets of dreams together, and to have-"

"-different fish in the same pond, I understand. I still don't see how you could come up with an idea so completely and utterly ridiculous. Who's to say any of that is even remotely close to the truth?"

"Who's to say it isn't?" countered Thomas. "I know it's just guesswork, but it's all that I can think of. You need to speak with this woman, and in order to do that you need to reach across whatever dream-boundary there is left. She doesn't realize she's not in her own mind any longer, and she won't until she's forced to."

I didn't want to believe him. "It isn't possible," I muttered.

"Maybe," admitted Thomas, "but would you rather touch her and risk a little discomfort, or waste away until you die? There isn't anything else that you can do, James. This is all the help I can give you."

I just shook my head over and over. I could feel fear creeping up my spine and taking over my entire body. Oh, how I dreaded that woman, that endless, bottomless sorrow that radiated from her presence. I feared and loathed the prospect of touching her. I refused to do it.

Thomas just shook his head sadly at me. "I truly hope you get better, James, but there is nothing more that I can do." He walked out of the door and left me alone with my dread.

A/N: I haven't left any notes, but I'd just like to comment that I wrote all from half of chapter two until now in one sitting, I just held this last chapter back for further scrutiny. I thought that was an interesting bit of trivia for you.  
And yes, I am definitely going to finish this story.  
As another note, I know that some of what James is going through is a bit dark, and I even found myself thinking 'emo' in parts of this chapter, but hang in there, because this entire story is not that dark. So… yeah. I'd like to hear your thoughts, if you have any on my story, that is. Thanks for reading this far!


	6. Reflections

Ch 6

For the next few days I continued to resist sleep, but all of my efforts proved futile. I would fall into that terrible dreamland and come nearly face to face with the sorrowful woman, and I felt as though I might just die of sadness just being in her presence. Each time I would struggle to run away, but no matter how I tried I never could. Sometimes I would remember what Thomas had told me, but I always refused to touch that woman, for I was so full of terror at the prospect of having to feel the physical entity of that pain and suffering.

I was truly wasting away. I soon found that I could not get up out of bed. At first it had been that I would feel too numb upon my awakening to do anything, and it would take me quite some time to get up. Then it was that I could not, for any strength that had once been in my body had now left me. I was nothing but an empty shell of a man. My body had deteriorated. My mind was going as well.

I could not eat. My servant, William, (who was by now old and decrepit with age) pleaded with me every meal time to just eat a little. Sometimes I would try, but I could not manage to swallow anything. Soon I stopped trying, for I felt that I was beyond food, and that all I could manage to do was to lie on that cursed bed and wait for the next nightly bought of nightmares.

They called in doctors. The doctors could do nothing. They called in priests. They would pray over me and cast holy water about and try and remove whatever evil it was that plagued me, but that must not have been what God intended for me, for the prayers did no good. My father came in and saw me. That was the worst. At first he told me to hold on to my strength, and that the blood of royals was in me, but then I looked him in the eyes and I think he could feel a bit of my suffering and the extreme sadness that that woman had transferred into me. My father could talk no more, and I think he knew that there was nothing more he could do for me, and he was helpless. It was a horrible moment.

One day I awoke from a turbulent sleep to see Thomas standing in the doorway. He did not say anything, but just stared at me with his penetrating eyes, silently begging me to help myself. But I had already given up, and there was nothing more that he could do to get me to change my mind, and he left, and I thought I could see tears in his eyes.

I wasted away until one night, I found it even hard to breathe, and the doctors and the priests all came in and the entire family was there. I knew that they knew I was going to die. I myself had never felt any fear at the prospect, for death had always seemed like it would be a relief. But looking into the eyes of my Mother, who was crying, and my Father, who looked pained beyond belief, as well as all my brothers and sisters right down to little Amy who was only eleven and clinging to my shriveled arm and sobbing, I had a sudden revelation that I did not really want to die, but only wanted my life to return to the way it was. I knew that death might be a relief, but what sort of relief could cause such grief as well? I felt my mind slipping into a panic of some sort, because I knew that there was nothing to be done for me and it was too late now. My heart began to beat rapidly, but the breath would not come fast enough. I felt my entire body shuddering with the effort just to survive, but I knew it could not take any more of this. The priest was hovering over me, and although I did not bother to register the words he was saying, I knew he was giving me my last rites.

And then, amid the noise and the grief, my eyes closed and I was gone.

It was a very strange feeling. I felt as though I were floating downward peacefully, and for a moment I forgot all about what had just happened and what might be happening next and only floated there without a thought. But then it all came rushing back to me, all my family and the tears and that unbearable feeling and the knowledge that I DID NOT WANT TO DIE!

I opened my dream-eyes, and I knew I was not dead yet. I was dreaming. I found myself in a dark forest full of pines and fir trees. They were all such a beautiful deep green, and were some of the finest trees that I had ever seen. But they were fading. They were fading slowly, but fading nevertheless. The entire image of the cool green forest was dimming as though the light were slowly disappearing. Or I was disappearing. With a jolt I realized that while I was not dead yet, I soon would be, and this was my last dream. I did not want to die anymore. I did not want to die. I did not want to die.

And all of a sudden, _she_ was there. She glided in from between the dark and dimming trees and came, slowly, inexorably, forward. I was filled with the most horrible dread, the likes of which I had never felt, and would likely never feel again. This was my one last chance at life. No matter how immeasurable my fear of the woman was, I had no choice. I did not want to die, oh Lord, I did not want to die.

She came closer, her empty brown eyes staring right through me. According to Thomas, she did not know where she was. According to him, she didn't know she was in _my _dream and not her own. He said that I would need to touch her, and to somehow pull her out of it, and know what was happening.

I did not want to touch her. Oh, I wished I could have run away from there, but there was nothing left for me and this was my last and only hope.

She drew closer and closer, wandering to the left and the right, back and forth without appearing to have any sort of reasoning for the direction she wandered in. As she came closer the sorrow of that tortured soul seemed to wash over me like an actual wave. I was terrified, but I was more desperate than I had ever been before in my life, and before I could change my mind I lunged outward and grabbed her withered arm.

For an instant I saw in those eyes reflected the complete and total fear that were in mine, and then I felt such a pain that I thought my very heart would burst. I may have screamed aloud, whether it was in that dreamland or in my physical body, I don't know. I was completely surrounded by a cacophony of loud voices and other noises. I was drowning in this woman's memories, these memories that did not belong to me! But _she_ didn't belong _here!_

Desperately I reached out with my other hand and grabbed onto her ruined clothing. The pain only increased the closer I got to her. I knew that if I failed, I would die, so I frantically pulled and tugged at this woman's arms and clothing, trying somehow to pull her past this horrible wave of grief and blindness to where she could see me and register the fact that I was real and that she had been killing me and that now she was the only one who could save me.

All of a sudden the noises stopped and I found that I had fallen to the ground. But where I was was a mystery to me, for I was no longer in that deep green forest, but a different one. It was the same, yet changed in some way. The leaves were not as dark, the sky was not hidden. The wood did not fade.

I turned to the woman and found that she had fallen too, and was looking at me with this intense fear in her eyes. It was a horrible, yet somehow wonderful feeling to finally be seen by this phantom, and I found that I could not look away from her. But I could feel myself weakening and I realized that wherever I was, it could not stop me from dying in the true world, and I had only this chance.

"Who are you?" I demanded, scrambling toward her on my knees. "Why are you here, why have you been haunting me?" She did not answer, and only looked too stunned to speak. Her dirty hair was falling into her eyes and making her look like some ratty beggar child. "Who are you?" I was shouting now. I probably sounded hysterical. I could feel myself weakening. "Tell me, why are you here? Why were you always there? Why can you never speak to me, or see me?" I faltered. The girl looked terrified. "Please," I begged, "please tell me. There isn't enough time to wait any longer, please just speak to me!"

There was a moment of complete silence between the two of us, and then the girl suddenly jumped forward and seized my hand in hers as though she couldn't believe I was solid. I flinched away at first, for I feared the feeling of suffering that she exuded, but I suppose I was suffering enough myself, for I no longer felt anything. The girl was muttering "Oh, help me, help me, oh please, help, help me" over and over again all whilst clinging to my hand as though she would never let go of it.

"Who are you?" I asked one final time, but she ignored me and spoke rapidly and disjointedly, as though she had not spoken for quite some time.

"Oh, it's been so long, so long, I- I cannot- I- need to get out. Can you take me out? I thought I had died. I may be- I might be dead. You could be also-" oh, I certainly hoped not, "-but now I can- oh but I haven't felt- I can feel- I cannot-" she broke off and sat there in a daze, clinging to my hand for dear life. Suddenly, a look of great fear sprung into her eyes and she jumped up from where she was and began to sprint away as fast as she could, sending terrified glances back over her shoulder at something that I could not see.

And with a sudden, painful jolt, I found myself sitting bolt upright in my bed in my chambers at the palace, yelling as though I had just awoken from a terrible nightmare. I suppose I had, in a way. And there were my family all around me, looking horribly shocked and scared out of their wits, but then the doctors were on me, and there was _food_ on the table and I found myself lunging for it, for I had not eaten in days and I was feeling starved. I ate and I ate and although I was still as weak as a suckling pig, I felt stronger than I had in months. My family had started to laugh and cry until the doctors had shooed them out of the room because I don't think they felt completely assured that I wasn't going to die on them yet. And I could breathe, and think more clearly than I had felt in months, and with a sudden stab of realization, I understood that it was because I was no longer afraid of that woman. Of that sad girl who asked me for my help. And I didn't know why I had woken up, but I think it had something to do with that , and that there was nothing stopping me from living, once I knew how weak and unthreatening she really was.

I was completely exhausted, but I refused to sleep until I could see Thomas. The doctors called him back in and he gave me a look that told me what an idiot I had been, but that he was unbelievably glad that I was well again. I made the doctors leave, much to their displeasure, and told Thomas about what had happened, and how this woman was nothing more than a terrified girl that was full of unimaginable suffering, and that I was no longer afraid, because I had reached that level of suffering as well, and knew that as horrible as it was, I could not fear it any more. I told him all about the wood, and the terrible screaming noise and the feeling as though my very soul would be ripped away and thrown to some unknown murky depths, and he in turn told me that after I was unconscious, I let out this great shout and everyone in that tiny room could almost see something radiate from me, and that must have been when I touched her.

I told Thomas that she had begged me for my help. Help from what, I didn't know, but she clearly needed saving, and in some twisted and contorted way, my meeting her had saved me. I told Thomas I intended to return the favor, and he warned me to please be careful, for I had almost died on account of this woman before. Finally, I could hold out no longer, for I was beyond exhaustion, and fell asleep, and into my dreams.


	7. The Chapter With No Name

Reason was never a strength of mine, and I found that during my recovery it remained a weakness, for I could not figure any reason at all for my present predicament

Reason was never a strength of mine, and I found that during my recovery it remained a weakness, for I could not figure any reason at all for my present predicament. Dreams still haunted me at night, but this time thy consisted not just of the girl's haunted face, but also Thomas's words. Day or night, I could not get them out of my head, and they soon began to take over my thoughts much like the nightmares had.

I could tell the difference from the first night after she left. At first I worried that she would return, that Thomas's idea was merely a temporary solution. And upon first opening my dream eyes (for by now I could clearly tell when I was dreaming, unlike the confused fantasy-reality that most believe in while they sleep) I thought my fears had come true. The landscapes of my dream were unusual as dreams go, and everywhere I turned the image of that girl's face kept appearing as a ghostly apparition upon the hillsides. And echoing around me were her cries for help.

Although the girl had left me, she continued to haunt me. I now knew that Thomas's theory had some truth to it; as if my awakening from the sleep of death were not already enough to convince me. Time and time again I went over his theory in my head, trying to find some alternate explanation, but try as I might to convince myself the dreams were mere illusions, in my heart I knew she was no figment of my imagination. The sorrow was too painful and the fear too potent to be a dream. Somehow she was real, but how, I could not reason or even attempt to understand.

But yes, the nightmares were gone now. Month after painful month of recovery passed. My days were full of bed rest and physicians, and my nights left without the haunted girl slipping in and out of my dreams as though she were simply strolling through rooms in a house.

Yet she was still there. I could not get the girl off my mind. Who was she? Where did she come from? Was she dead, or was she really asleep somewhere, lost in dreams, as Thomas had first hypothesized? What troubled me the most, however, was why she had found her way to _my_ dreams, infiltrating _my_ mind. But I had no answer to these questions. All I knew was that it was so, and this dream-haunt could not find peace. And I also knew that I could never have peace until she did.

-

These thoughts occupied my mind during the months of my recovery. My body had wasted away during the time of the nightmares, and it took some time to recover my strength. The physicians seemed to consider my escape from death some sort of a miracle, and as a result there was always at least one nearby during the day. In fact, some of them seemed to consider my survival a fluke and seemed to expect me to drop dead at any moment.

But I knew better. Physically, there had never been anything wrong with me. In fact, I considered my condition to be self-inflicted. It was my own fear of the dream girl that had caused me to lose control of myself so drastically. I had become a cowering shell in the girl's presence, and after the fact I felt I should have been stronger. I was a prince, for goodness sake! Royal blood, dating back eight generations flowed through my veins. I was fearless in battle, respected honored, even sung about throughout my kingdom, although I was only a second son! And to think, one girl could bring me to my knees. I was humiliated. Each grueling hour I spent learning how to walk again, I would question myself, wondering how on earth I had been so weak. Thomas was often at my side, and he assured me that my poor health was not a sign of my weakness; that the mind is a complex and powerful thing, and in the presence of such forces cannot help but collapse. But he was wrong; there were some things that Thomas did not understand.

At night the dreams would come. The images flowed one after another, into each other, mixing and combining; the girl's face; her cry for help; the forest of death; Thomas's theory. Then I would wake, and recall Thomas's words of reassurance, the words that only angered me. I would remember my weakness, and I would remember the girl. And I knew that I must help her. I knew that while her mind was trapped, mine would forever dwell on it.

Then in the mornings I would once again see my shrunken body; it nearly made me sick to look at it sometimes. My skin hung of me like beggars rags. My muscles had withered; each day it was a trial to simply lift myself out of bed to start the daily circuit of the room. My eyes too, were not what they used to be. Nothing was clear anymore, and when I examined myself in a mirror, I looked so blurry I wasn't even sure if I was there or not. Once more, I would grow angry with myself for my inability to banish the girl from my thoughts once and for all.

I believe it was during these times that I made up my mind once and for all that I would find that girl and save her, if not for her sake alone, then for mine as well.


	8. Sun and Stone

Ch 8

Ch 8 Sun and Stone 

"Thomas, I am going to find her." The two of us were slowly making our way through the gardens of the castle, taking advantage of the pleasant weather and the chance to exercise my body. It had months since the nightmares had stopped, and since then I had worked constantly to regain my strength. My skin now had a healthier color, and I was strong enough to walk and lift objects. My eyesight, however, remained as poor as it had been upon my awakening, and it seemed there was nothing the physicians could do to fix it. But essentially I was recovered. I was nowhere near as strong or healthy as I had been when I first became ill, but I was now healthy enough that the physicians left me alone and no longer seemed convinced of my impeding death.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" asked Thomas, surprised that I had spoken. We had been silent during most of our walk thus far, and the fact that I was speaking at all surprised him.

"I said I am going to find her. The girl."

For a moment he looked confused, but his confusion soon changed to shock, which in turn quickly melted into disbelief. "You can't- you can't be serious," he said, chuckling to himself. "You must need more bed rest, James."

"I am perfectly serious," I said firmly, stopping on the path. "I mean exactly what I say. I will leave as soon as I am able. The physicians say I will be fit to ride in just a few weeks. I'll wait a bit longer of course; build up my strength to what it used to be…"

Thomas stood by a tree, fingering its leaves. There was still a hint of laughter in his face, but I could see it ebbing, making way for a much darker expression. He stood like that for so long, the silence between us was almost tangible. In the tree a bird trilled. It sounded strangely out of place.

"Thomas, you weren't there," I began, breaking the silence. "You've no idea what it was like to see her like that, so helpless-"

"I may not have seen this woman, but I _was_ there, cousin!" He turned on me, the darkness on his face growing with every word. "I sat and watched as you wasted away into _nothing_, as your minded faded. I sat with your sisters when they wept, I watched you mother worry herself sick, I heard the entire castle whisper about you, about how you were _sure_ to die, and how the King and Queen should start making funeral arrangements then, so not to disturb their concentration and could sooner return to properly ruling the kingdom!" Enraged, he glared at me, eyes penetrating through me. "You do not understand what it is like to watch everyone you love hurting, and not being able to do _anything_ about it. To be so utterly _helpless_." He spat the word at me like it was something dirty.

I looked away, clenching my jaw, attempting to hold back my outrage. "No idea? You weren't there, you can't understand, Thomas. I could feel every blow to her soul in _my_ heart. Every emotion passing through _her_ soul passed through _mine_. I know what true suffering feels like-"

"Do you not acknowledge your family?" he shouted, eyes bulging. We were inches apart. The veins in his forehead pulsed in time with his rage. Livid, he turned from me and stalked away.

Despite my fury, I knew this was not right. If Thomas did not understand, then no one would, least of all myself. I paced around the gardens for several minutes, trying to calm myself down. Ripping an apple from a tree, I squeezed it until it was nothing but bruised pulp, and threw it, and my anger, over the wall.

When I found Thomas he was in his study. The man was so predictable, it sometimes grew tiresome. He sat behind his desk, rifling though the pages of some thick tome. Agitated, he only glanced at me when I entered.

"Thomas-"

"Please leave, you are disturbing me."

"Thomas, put the book down."

"I'm sorry, but this is very important work." He continued to read through the volume, refusing looking up at me again. Resigned, but not defeated, I took a seat on the sofa.

As he read, Thomas became more and more agitated, and each minute he glanced up at me more often. Finally, annoyed beyond the point of submission, he dropped his book and glared at me silently.

"What are you reading?" I ventured, attempting to break the tension.

"Nothing of great import, it's very dull." He continued to glare at me.

"I was under the impression that it was very important work, and that you shouldn't be disturbed," I commented lightly.

"Well, you are right about one thing," he snapped coldly.

"Point taken," I replied, but I could not stop a small smile from tugging at my lips. This greatly annoyed Thomas, much to my amusement.

"If I tell you, will you leave?" he asked, almost pleading.

I thought about it for a moment, and lied. "Of course, I'll leave you alone with nothing but your books and your thoughts."

"You're lying…" he muttered softly, under his breath. I chuckled.

"Really Thomas, can't we talk this over like the men we are? We were childish today." He shrugged. I sat down in the chair opposite him, and began.

"Thomas, you saved my life. No one but you can take credit for that. I don't believe that anyone else was even capable of doing that. I love as though you were my brother, and it was my trust in you, my belief that you could help me that allowed me to listen, and survive. For all your help, I am eternally grateful, and in you debt.

"But you were not there. No, let me finish," I said, as Thomas opened his mouth to interrupt. "I say you were not there, because I was not _here._" You walked through these hallways, spoke to my family and my subjects, stood over my as I died because refused to listen to you. You were here, in this castle. _I was not._

"Did I ever tell you what I dreamt that night? I was in a wood filled with the most ancient trees; all colored the darkest green imaginable. As I stood there, I could feel it dying. _I_ was dying. I could see it all around me, in every leaf and twig and blade of grass that grew in that forest. They faded as I did.

"I have never felt the pain that I did when I touched that girl. I felt… I felt as though something had been ripped out of me and replaced with something burning. I could not see; I could not hear; all I knew was the agony of knowing that one can never die, even when already dead. It was that thought, over and over again, repeating in my head. 'One can never die, _you_ will never die. There is only this.'

"That is why I say that you were not there. You can not know what it was like to feel what that girl felt, to _know_ what she knew, and to still not know anything at all. Honestly, I don't know why I survived that night. I can't understand it, but all I know is that her pain was unendurable, and that I must help her. She haunts me still, Thomas, and there is no way I am able to ignore it any longer. I cannot think without her in my thoughts. I must find her."

Thomas shook his head at me, his look almost pleading. "She doesn't exist. She _can't_ exist. It's impossible-"

"No, Thomas, you were right. Your theories- everything."

"No, no, no. It's a scientific impossibility. I've read about it- done research… it's impossible! Dreams are nothing but illusions in our minds- exercise for the brain as we sleep, nothing more! People do not _share dreams!_ It's ridiculous… ludicrous…"

"Then why in the world did you suggest it to me, Thomas?" I began, my old anger slowly returning. "You seemed very sure of yourself at the time-"

"I made it up!" he shouted, exasperated. "It was purely psychological; I didn't even know it would work! I had no idea what was wrong with you, let alone how to fix it. What was I to do?"

"Please don't defend yourself, Thomas." I said softly. "It doesn't matter how you came up with it, because it worked. And it's real. I know it in my heart,_ and_ in my brain. I _must_ help her." Thomas sank into the sofa across the room, looking utterly numb. "Face it Thomas, you are a brilliant philosopher now, like it or not." He shook his head dumbly.

Then, after about ten minutes of him sitting silently and me pacing the room, he spoke. "Even if she is real, you cannot leave like this. You speak of feeling _her_ pain. I speak of feeling the pain of an entire family, of a brother. I speak of my own pain." He lifted his hand to his heart, and for a moment his expression looked so like the girl's that I had to blink away the illusion. He turned to me, his eyes boring into my own. "You were dead, James. You were dead, on the brink with no hope of return. And the only one who can't seem to understand what that meant is you." He looked away though the window to where the sun was beginning to sink beyond the hills. "All of us here felt pain. Not someone else's pain, somehow projected onto us, but our own, like knifes in our hearts. I don't believe you know what that is like, no matter how many times you say you felt this girl's sorrow. You will never know sorrow until it is your own." He stopped, turning his gaze back on my face.

"You're wrong," I whispered. "I know what you went through was awful, but you're wrong."

"Please," he said weakly, knowing there was no convincing me, "just stay here, rest, regain your strength…"

"I will stay only long enough to do so," I said, turning away from him. "But I will save her."

Behind me, through the window, the sky was quickly losing light, the clouds moving in to guard the faceless moon. The study filled with shadows, and as I left I could just make out Thomas whisper, "Then who is going to save you?"


End file.
